Well, Mongoose HQ is just about shut down now - today, it is just me, Charlotte and Dom from Cubicle 7 underneath the air conditioning that is straining away to keep the worst of the winter cold at bay.

It has been a fun year, and we are looking forard to 2010. RuneQuest II is now at print (check out the second preview, just posted - there is also a preview of Traveller's 1,001 Characters up), and we cannot wait to get our hands on its leatherbound goodness. The last of the mail orders have gone out, and no more will be posted until January 2nd. If you have made an order in the past two days, please be patient, we'll be right on it in January!

Which just leaves me to thank all our fans for supporting Mongoose for another year, and to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

As in offices around the world, things are starting to wind down here at Mongoose. The Christmas party topok place last Friday, comprising much hearty grog, games of Talisman and Hungry Hippos (pretty sure we could set up a league of the latter), and a banquet fit for an Emperor at one of Swindon's finest restaurants.

We drew a line at the end of 2009 - no projects would over run into 2010, whether they were in writing, editing or layout. It looks, finally, like we are going to achieve this (more or less), despite some end of year set backs. RuneQuest II is at print as I write this, and we are just waiting to hear when it will be delivered. This is going to be a sweet looking book.

The huge mega-epic-introductory Gloranthan campaign, Pavis Rises, is also complete, edited, and now in layout, woth proofing complete by January. High Programmers is complete on our end, though it is waiting approval, meaning it will be a January release. The only two flies in the ointment, so to speak, are Dilettante and the Traveller Campaign Guide. A 'writer issue' there means they will be out a little late in 2010 - however, just two books out of 70-odd releases in 2009 is an acceptable loss and, come 2010, all our books will have an extra month in production meaning little hiccups like this will no longer impact on the release schedule.

As the usual mad pace of Mongoose life begins to slow, I am taking advantage of the break to catch up on some old projects and emails that have been left fallow for too long. I am adding a couple of chapters to the new Lone Wolf Multiplayer Gamebook (we were going to leave the Magnakai for an 'advanced' supplement, but it makes more sense to make the Kai complete in the core book as we are going to be covering new classes later - even though high level Magnakai are _very_ powerful characters in this game), and finally getting through some proposed contracts that have been on my desk for a while.

Oh, just had some news - both Vargr and the Trojan Reaches Map Pack are coming in this week, so expect some parcels over the Christmas break if you pre-ordered. . .

I have set myself some specific tasks to be completed over the Christmas break. First is to finish painting the entire third company of the Dark Angels (and I can't tell you how tempting it is to aim to complete the entire Deathwing and Ravenwing in 2010. . .). Second, read through the Star Wars Dawn of Defiance campaign, which seems likely to become our new office game next year before we dive back into Traveller. Third, actually start some work on one of two original novels that have been meandering their way through the back of my brain - I always seem to find excuses to do other projects first. Oh, and fourth, seriously ramp up my achievement points on either Dragon Age or Modern Warfare 2. Maybe both.

What has any of that got to do with Mongoose? Well, umm, the Dark Angels are, err, research, yes that's right. Research for our forthcoming miniatrues ranges. The Dawn of Defiance campaign is actually connected to 'proper' work, as we very much want to see how WotC have handled a complete and free downloadable campaign as opposed to our traditional method of releasing epic campaigns as larger books. Is this something we want to start doing to support our new ranges?

With the new novels, you never know. Deus Vult is loosely based on a novel I wrote a couple of years ago, and Reaver is based on an outline for a novel I put together before that. Who knows what might pop up in games? Achievement points have nothing to do with roleplaying, though I have always liked the idea of integrating something similar into hobby games, getting points for, perhaps, taking out an enemy ship in Traveller who masses ten times more than your own, or sinking an entire fleet in Victory at Sea using nothing but torpedoes. Or maybe we award medals instead of points that can be worn at conventions, so you can demonstrate to others what a serious gamer you are - though I recall Knights of the Dinner Table did a strip about something similar, and I fear it would have the same results.

Anyway, in-between all that, you can be sure that everyone at Mongoose will be opening presents, watching TV and enjoying much Christmas cheer. We wish every one of you the same good fortune this Christmas and a very happy New Year.

The State of the Mongoose revealed our promise to bring the Lone Wolf Multiplayer Gamebook forward in our schedule, and you'll be able to get your hands on all that Magnamund-goodness in March!

The entire series is being printed in our pint-size 'pocket' format, so even with a few planned books in the range, you'll never be breaking your back getting to the local club or store for a game.

However, I thought it might be fun to take a brief sneak peek at the rules of the new game, and some of the designs philosophies we drew upon in its creation.

The design brief for the Lone Wolf Multiplayer Gamebook (yes, it is an RPG by any other name but, for reasons that will become obvious, we wanted to keep a continuity in title with the solo gamebooks) was twofold. First, we wanted an RPG that faithfully reflected the world of Magnamund and the original gamebooks. The previous Lone Wolf RPG had been bent to the D20 System and while that worked well enough, there were always some Lone Wolf fans who thought it played a little like D&D (though the Kai disciplines _did_ fit well with the level system, which is one reason we chose D20 for the game in the first place).

Second, we wanted it to potentially serve as an inexpensive springboard into the RPG hobby for people who have never roleplayed before but were keen Lone Wolf fans. We have made no secret that we are working on getting the Lone Wolf series into a softback series and then into mainstream book stores (if there are any still left open - Borders is no more in the UK. . .). The multiplayer gamebook is obviously a good route for such people who might be picking up the solo gamebooks in a store, and might well be led into a whole new hobby by the multiplayer version positioned right next to the solo books. . .

This second brief meant the game had to be very, very easy. Veteran roleplayers might well have been brought up on AD&D or even MERP, but if new roleplayers are going to be hooked then something a little less heavyweight is required these days!

So, to that end, we took the rules of the solo gamebooks, and used them as a foundation - and, to use stretch the analogy further, we built a fairly low structure on top! Basically, the multiplayer gamebook uses the same combat rules, so characters are defined by Combat Skill and Endurance Point scores. We resisted the urge to layer other characteristics on top of that, so a character sheet for this game has Combat Skill and Endurance Points, Disciplines, Equipment, and that is about it. In fact, you can use the Action Charts from the solo books for the multiplayer games!

Of course, in a full-blown RPG, players need to be able to do more than just fight, so we needed a mechanism to handle characters climbing, sneaking about, pickpocketing, haggling with glum merchants, and general getting up to all the mischief players want. To this end, we introduced the Test. Whenever a player tries to do something that has a chance of failure, he tries to succeed in a Test.

The Games master assigns a Difficulty for the Test, based on how easy (or not) he thinks the task is. A Difficulty of 2 or 3 is really easy, 9 or 10 is very hard - the player simply rolls a D10 (or picks a number - yes, the number chart will be in the multiplayer gamebook as well, so you don't even need dice!), and if he scores equal or higher than the Difficulty, he succeeeds. It is as easy as that (and, in fact, is exactly the same system as the solo gamebooks uses for non-combat tasks, though they tackle it a slightly different way).

There is, however, a chance for a player to 'barter' his way into a few bonuses, however. A particularly good piece of roleplaying may get the Games Master to grant him a +1 or +2 bonus towards getting the merchant to lower his prices. More importantly, the characters various disciplines will often be written into adventures. For example, calming a manic horse frightened by Giaks may be a Difficulty 8 Test, but if someone has Animal Kinship, they will find they get an automatic bonus, making the task much easier. Bonuses based on disciplines are always worked out at half the character's rank, rounded down - everyone starts at Rank 5, so they get a +2 bonus to all areas of their own specialities. Among a whole party, most areas will be covered, giving the players a decent chance of success.

There are a few other rules grafted on to the solo system - fighting multiple opponents, for example, or ganging up on a single enemy, how to break objects, and what to do when falling. However, at every stage we have kept the system as 'pure' and as easy as possible. The rules cover enough ground to allow players to do pretty much anything they want, and yet remain simple enough that very young players can take part or, alternatively, older players can concentrate on character and story, rather than mechanics.

For reasons of simplicity and keeping everything as easy to get into as possible, the only character 'class' featured in the main rulebook is the Kai Monk (the softback versions of the solo books will not have the bonus adventures featuring other characters. . .), and we have included three linked adventures to keep a new Games master off. The first supplemental release for the game will be Terror of the Darklords, a full blown campaign for Kai Monks and, after that, Heroes of Magnamund, which will introduce the other character types I know veteran players will be hankering after by then. We are also looking at producing some detailed sourcebooks covering various areas of Magnamund, and you can see some of the content in the series of Lone Wolf articles we have been running in Signs & Portents recently.

I am really looking forward to this game's release. It really is a system that you can learn, front to back, within ten minutes of play, even if you have never picked up an RPG before. And yet, it still opens uop the whole, marvellous world of Magnamund to players, from the forests of Sommerlund to the depths of the Darklands.